After Collecting N2.8bn Severance Pay, Former CJN Belgore Acts against Country

* EFCC to arraign suspects in P&ID failed deal soon
* Concerns mount as Oguntade, other ex-judicial officers hold
briefs for foreign interests

Former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Alfa Belgore, who has
been a regular visitor at the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) Headquarters, Abuja for a couple of weeks, might
have been indicted by the anti-graft agency for misconduct, THISDAY
report.

The commission’s conclusion might have arisen from his alleged
breach of Section 5 (1) of the fifth schedule of the 1999
Constitution as altered, which prohibits former public officers of
his status from offering their services to foreign company or
interests, an EFCC source told THISDAY last night.

The said section of the grundnorm forbids former presidents,
vice presidents, chief justice of Nigeria, governors and deputy
governors from serving foreign companies and enterprises after
leaving office.

According to legal experts, the mischief, which the law seeks to
cure, is to prevent foreign concerns from taking undue advantage of
the wealth of sensitive information and knowledge of the workings
of government these categories of public officers have against the
national interest.

In consideration of this restriction, said a legal luminary,
government awarded these erstwhile public officers, huge payouts at
the end of their tenure to compensate them for possible loss of
revenue arising from their inability to apply their rich knowledge
for personal benefits after office.

“In the case of former chief justices,” said the senior lawyer,
“the severance allowance is hefty: N2.8billion.”
Belgore, THISDAY gathered picked up this hefty payout when he
exited in 2008, collecting N2billion in cash and N800million for a
house of his choice.

With this huge fund, an EFCC official told THISDAY, the former
CJN had been bonded not to act for any foreign interest.

But Belgore appears to have been indicted by the anti-graft
agency for a breach of this constitutional bond for acting as a
legal consultant to a British Virgin Island company, Process and
Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID), which picked up a huge
$6.6bn arbitral award in a 2013 dispute over a failed gas to power
deal with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

By 2019 when the company, owned by Irish men, got an enforcement
judgment from a United Kingdom commercial court in London, the
award had grown by $3billion, increasing Nigeria’s total liability
to $9.6billion.

It is EFCC’s contention that the foreign country got this
colossal pay on the back of an expert legal opinion rendered to it
by Belgore.

The former CJN had in a legal opinion to P&ID resolved the
two substantive issues in the dispute in favour of the foreign
company against the NNPC, saying that the corporation was not only
in breach of the said contract but also liable to pay
compensation.

It is the opinion of the EFCC, said a senior official, that this
advisory, coming from a former CJN, must have had a strong
influence on the London arbitration tribunal, which adjudicated the
matter and eventually found Nigeria liable in a split decision over
quantum of award.

The official noted that it was interesting that while the
Nigerian on the panel, Chief Bayo Ojo, also former attorney-general
of the federation, found Nigeria liable but awarded $250 million as
compensation, the other two panelists of British origin, Lord
Hoffman and Sir Anthony Evans, had no inhibition granting the
British Virgin Island company the fat $6.6 billion
compensation.

“No doubt, the foreigners must have come to the conclusion that
if a former chief justice of Nigeria could find the country liable,
he must have done so with his abundant knowledge of the Nigerian
law,” said the EFCC official.

THISDAY learnt that while Belgore’s lawyer, Mr. Tunde Fagbohun,
a silk; worked on the initial draft of the opinion, Mr. Dele
Belgore, another silk and brother of the former CJN, was said to
have written the second and controversial draft that did the damage
to Nigeria’s interest.

Both of them have been questioned by the EFCC for what an
official called “accomplice to the fact of grave constitutional
misconduct by a former judicial officer.”

It was not clear last night the forum for the prosecution but
legal experts said being a misconduct by a former public officer,
the most appropriate place would be the Code of Conduct
Tribunal.

An EFCC official and several other lawyers, however, voiced
concerns yesterday at the rate at which former judicial officers
were making their wealth of experience and influence available to
foreign interests against the national interest.

The concerns became rifer when it was found that another former
justice of the Supreme Court, Justice George Oguntade, now High
Commissioner to the United Kingdom, was fingered in another legal
suit involving Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited and
the NNPC over a sore contract.

Although he is not caught by the restraining section of the
constitution, lawyers feel that a former public officer of his
status and close associate of President Muhammadu Buhari, ought to
have been more circumspect in dealing with foreign interests, like
Mobil in matters that affect Nigeria.

While Esso, based on the former justice’s legal opinion, got
$1.8 billion award, an enforcement proceeding failed on September
4, when a US District Court presided by William Pauley III
dismissed the company’s application against Nigeria in New
York.

An online portal, Premium Times, had reported extensively
opinions of lawyers who said the P&ID case presented a clear
conflict of interest, and more importantly, that Belgore violated
the constitution by choosing to offer his service to P&ID.

It also cited Section 5 of the Fifth Schedule of the 1999
Constitution, which prohibits former presidents, vice presidents,
Chief Justice of Nigeria, governors and deputy governors from
working for foreign companies or enterprises.

“I think by virtue of Section 5(1) of the fifth schedule of the
Constitution, he is barred. He is prohibited from doing any work
for foreign companies or enterprises, P&ID is not a Nigerian
company, is not registered in Nigeria. So, it is a foreign
enterprise,” it quoted an Abuja based lawyer, Mr. Abdul Mahmud, as
saying.

Mahmud, according to it, said Belgore should be made to face
trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal as specified by law.
“So, he can be hauled to the Code of Conduct Tribunal. It is a
breach. And only the Code of Conduct Tribunal has exclusive
jurisdiction over matters devolving around Code of Conduct. It is
no longer a moral question; it is a Constitutional and legal
question,” he said.